Consumption
by T.Pike
Summary: Stan and Ford follow the anomaly tracker to their next adventures in the frozen north, far from much of human society. Something stalks the nearby wilderness, hunting the people who dare to leave town; the Pines take it upon themselves to investigate. Continuation from "Normal Place, Normal People".
1. Blood on the Ice

The further up the trail led, the less discernable it became. Fresh snowfall over the unfamiliar woods made the trek difficult, and the townsfolk had little more than a passing idea of where the potentially cryptid-inhabited cave was. But Ford managed. He'd survived the snowdrifts of the Dimension of Ice for nearly four months, after all; a day hiking the in sunny, barely freezing temperatures could be a vacation, comparatively.

It was quiet. Snow and twigs crackled beneath their feet; occasionally, a small critter rustled somewhere amongst the trees. Usually, Stan's incessant chatter overpowered the anomaly tracker. The device's beeping made his brother's continued silence all the more pointed. Ford resituated the scarf over his nose and continued walking.

* * *

 _Anomaly 122 is some sort of mountain-dwelling, snow-and-ice affiliated cryptid allegedly living in the pine forests near the coast of the Hudson Bay. The locals have indicated that there is something frightening the hikers, somewhere deep in the woods, but none have mentioned the creature entering town or attacking large groups of people. Typical sorts of rumors, but, as previous research has shown, they're usually right. We'll be bracing the chill of sub-Arctic winter frost at some point today, whenever S decides to get ready. I'll be furious if we miss the precious daylight…_

* * *

"We should be getting close," Ford murmured. Habitually, he glanced at the anomaly tracker on his wrist, despite its beeps making the same sentiment abundantly clear, even through the layers of coat and gloves that obfuscated it. "Maybe half an hour more?"

Stan didn't answer.

"Hopefully, the sunlight lasts."

Stan still refused to respond.

Though the disgruntled boots stomping through the snow nearby indicated that his brother still walked behind him, Ford spared a glance to check. It wouldn't be the first time a yeti had eaten someone following him and then stalked him until hunger struck again. This, fortunately, wasn't one of those times; Stan trudged behind him, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his new coat. He seemed to be focusing all his energy on ignoring Ford.

Sighing, the older twin returned his attention to the trail. "At least we both have flashlights this time, huh?"

Yielding no acknowledgement, Ford shook his head. His brother could be so petulant.

* * *

 _The creature, as far as the rumors would have it, seems to do little more than creep about the shadows and watch the hikers on the trails. None of the stories have indicated that it even wants to interact with humans, let alone cause them any harm. Of course, that doesn't mean that I've decided to go into the woods unarmed. Since our time in Hurricane, S has become far less insistent on the matter of not carrying firearms. I had every intention of arming myself again, regardless of his "permission," but it was nice to avoid another argument._

* * *

The sun well passed its zenith by the time the twins encountered the cave. It had been farther off the trail than any of the townsfolk had estimated and hidden behind a particularly dense thicket of evergreens. If not for his anomaly tracker's insistent beeping, Ford surely wouldn't have found it.

Ford approached the mouth of the cave first, cautiously investigating for any signs of danger. Some tracks, far too long and thin for typical woodland fauna, trailed from within; as they had been mostly covered by the previous night's snowfall, Ford couldn't identify them with any certainty.

Dauntless, he entered the cave. His boots clomped against the felsic flooring, his footsteps a metronome marking his movement. Hardly a dozen steps in, the sunlight ceased; Ford withdrew a flashlight from the depths of his coat, clicked it on, and surveyed the space.

It was empty, unsurprisingly, and spacious, with only a few stalactites forming near the walls. Ford proceeded deeper into the cave, watching everything but his feet, scouring the walls and floor for any indication of life. Whatever normally traversed through this area had claws; thin, shallow scratches marked distinct paths inward and outward. Curious trait for a docile creature.

Another light flicked on behind him. Stan's flashlight tended to mimic the movements of his own, perhaps in an effort to be helpful for the first time that day. Ford found himself smiling—for nearly locating and documenting another cryptid, and for the end of his little brother's tantrum—until the second light listed aside, eventually disappearing entirely somewhere behind him.

"Stanley, please." Ford sighed and glanced back to his brother. Stan in no way acknowledged that he had spoken; his light and attention focused near his own feet. As Ford made to question, he saw what had given Stan pause.

Fresh blood had pooled near a stalagmite; it wasn't a lethal amount of blood, but enough to imply significant injury. Some of the dark liquid had smeared, as though whatever bled out had been dragged away, and a few clawed footprints trailed deeper into the cave.

* * *

 _Carnivorous, if not omnivorous, and apparently non-hibernating. There were old bloodstains, but there were also many fresh ones, indicating that the creature had been recently active. Someone in town had indicated that, at this time of year, deer were common prey for human and animal hunters alike. Perhaps the creature stalks hikers and hunters, mistaking them for its typical food source?_

* * *

Ford lost track of time in the darkness, walking slowly toward the back of the cave, where the potential cryptid must have nested, trying to find anything noteworthy in the emptiness. A faint, sharp smell hung in the air, something passingly familiar that he couldn't identify through the thick scarf wound around his face. Sounds resonated loudly: the anomaly tracker beeping fast, their footsteps thudding against the rocky floor, water dripping somewhere outside the range of their flashlights, Ford's voice echoing with the occasional comment. Stan's silence stood all the more poignant against the repeated sounds.

"This cave reminds me of the one I lived in during my stay in the Dimension of Ice."

Stan said nothing.

"Odd that we haven't heard the creature." Ford spared a glance back. When it became apparent that Stan was still adamantly avoiding his brother's look, he rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the path illuminated by his flashlight.

If they could still see the sun, Ford imagined that it would barely be peeking over the horizon. Ford watched the shadows carefully, seeking some sign of the creature—skittering movement, eyes peering out from the darkness, anything, really—but to no avail. Only the shadows of the stalagmites shifting as the light passed over them and the occasional dark stain. He wondered how deep the cave went, where this cryptid could possibly be hiding in the vacuous space, where his brother's flashlight had gone—

"Stanley?"

There was no answer, only the muffled beeping from his wrist and a distant dripping.

Ford frowned. "Stanley?"

When, again, he received no response, Ford scoured the cave with his light. Frustration and anxiety welled in the back of his throat, escaping him as a strangled, guttural noise. "Stanley, this is no time for your shenanigans—"

"Hey, Sixer." Stan's call was in no way urgent, fearful, or even amused. If anything, it was a little bit too loud, but otherwise completely uninterested.

Ford's flashlight flicked immediately downward. Amidst the old blood coloring the area, Stan knelt on the ground, more than a few paces to his right, his attention squarely focused on the cave wall and a tighter collection of scratch marks.

"Perhaps you'd like to warn me next time you disappear into the darkness." Arms folded, Ford moved toward his brother, stopping behind him. "I refuse to let you make a habit of this nonsense."

Again, Stan completely ignored him, instead gesturing to the words etched on the low part of the wall; in his hand was a blue baseball cap that Ford was reasonably certain wasn't his brother's. Ford leaned closer, placing a hand on Stan's shoulder to steady—

Stan yelped, jerked aside, and dropped the flashlight. When he realized that it was only Ford, he swore, loudly. "Shit, Ford, how about you give a guy some warning, huh?" His breathing slowed to its usual pace and his hand released its death grip on his heart. "Sneaking up on me in a dark cave—lucky I didn't have a damn heart attack…"

Ford blinked. "What are you talking about? I'm the only thing making any noise!"

"You're gonna have to speak up, Sixer, I can't hear a—oh."

"Oh?"

For the fourth time in the last minute, Stan ignored his brother. He instead stripped his gloves off, resting them on the ground beside him, then did the same with his red cap. He finagled with a piece in his ear; when he spoke again, he no longer shouted.

"You were saying?"

Ford balked as he watched his brother bundle up again. "Was that—what was—Stanley, is that why you've been ignoring me all day?!"

"Have you been talking all day?" Stan shrugged and retrieved the flashlight. "I was wondering why it was so quiet. Say anything interesting?"

"How long has your hearing aid been off?!" Ford's shout shook the cave.

"I dunno. I guess I didn't turn it on when we went into town."

"Of all the childish—"

Stan waved off his brother's rant. "Yell at me later, Poindexter." His flashlight dipped downward, again illuminating the words on the ground. "Come see if this note makes any sense or if we need to be worried about some kind of lunatic hiding out down here."

Still fuming, Ford knelt beside him. He redirected his attention to the scratches. Messily carved with an unsteady hand, the words were almost illegible; after a few moments, Ford managed to interpret the marks: _My brother is not a monster_. He frowned.

"It could be anything, I suppose," he mused, his outrage quelling instantaneously. Quietly, he considered the message aloud. "Though we are a fair distance from the trails, it's not inconceivable that the message would be left by a hiker or a hunter, but why? And when? To what end? There must be some particular circumstance to have prompted such a comment. Even in an advanced state of madness… The handwriting, if one could consider it as such, doesn't appear to have the usual ticks of mania—the letters are shaky and malformed, but each is deep, purposeful, and the strokes tend to move in the same direction…"

"So, what?"

Ford shook his head. "There's not enough information to draw any sort of conclusions. Most likely, it's irrelevant to our research."

"And this?" Stan held the baseball cap out to his brother. "It was just sitting there in the blood."

Ford took the hat and cast a cursory glance over it. Faded, worn, entirely unremarkable, the cap yielded no indication of its origin or the purpose of its presence. He handed it back to his brother. "Irrelevant, as far as I can tell. Perhaps related to the message on the wall, but unimportant to our investigation."

* * *

 _His hearing aid! Off, all day! What would have happened had we been separated? S is clearly developing a habit of disappearing during our investigations—what if I had been injured in his absence? He would have had no idea! One argument and he endangers us both with his petulance! What would have happened if he hadn't heard…?_

* * *

The sharp smell had become more potent, though its identity remained elusive. Deep within the cave, the path split: the path to the right seemed to descend, while the path on the left ascended. Ford considered the different directions. There was precious little information for him to use in his extrapolations; he wasn't even positive that the creature they sought was a cryptid. He had enhanced the tracker's weirdness sensitivity in Potters Springs, after all. They could, for all he knew, be chasing a particularly curious fox or a day bat. (This dimension had day bats, didn't it? Other than the eye bats indigenous to Gravity Falls, of course.)

He ignored Stan's impatient noises—tapping foot, disgruntled hems and haws—as he weighed the options. A solid plan would prevent them from endlessly wandering through this foreign cave until overcome by darkness and death. His brother was just so _short-sighted_ …

In his frustration, Ford became acutely aware that he was being watched. He scoured the shadows for the eyes he felt upon him, his flashlight flitting erratically, until it landed on the source of his paranoia.

It shouldn't have been alive in that emaciated state, a humanoid creature with no musculature to hold the bones together. Its ashen, papery skin nearly camouflaged it against the cave wall, but its eyes glimmered green in the light. The cryptid remained crouched, eyeing the twins with suspicion, waiting for an indication of their intent.

"Fascinating."

Ford's awe was barely a breath, but it was enough to prompt the creature to scream and run on all fours into the darkness. The reverberation shook the cave. Ford didn't notice; he sprinted after the cryptid.

The right pathway dropped abruptly about a dozen yards deep. Ford managed not to break stride, though he still struggled to keep pace with the cryptid. For its skeletal build and unnatural stride, it moved with impressive speed and agility. It disappeared around a corner.

Ford fell with a clamor, hard, when he attempted to follow. Fortunately, the floor beneath him hadn't disappeared for long, only allowing him to fall a few feet onto shifting piles of small stones. He pushed himself to his feet; after taking stock of himself (nothing more than a few bumps and bruises), he investigated his surroundings.

As the light surveyed the space, Ford realized that he had been hasty in his assessment of the flooring. At least, amongst the assorted skeletons, he realized what the sharp odor accompanying the creature was.

* * *

 _Stanley would not help me escape from the pit of human remains until I swore to admit that I made a poor decision in chasing blindly after the creature, and that I was terribly misguided in my conjectures that the cryptid was docile. Though I refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing on the latter assertion—everyone I spoke with in town insisted that the creature had harmed no one! I had expected to encounter some sort of carnivorous deer or forest spirit—something easily manageable!_

 _In addition to refusing to allow me to continue my research (honestly, you fall into one pit of decaying bodies and skeletons one time, and all of a sudden "it's too dangerous" for further study), S ranted and raved the entire trek back into town about how "irresponsible" and "reckless" this endeavor has been. The nerve! Two hours of this lecture, from a man who, in the last three months, has broken into at least 4 different buildings on as many occasions, gotten into a loud brawl with a half dozen drunken sailors, thrown himself headlong into the jaws of a sea beast, assisted a group of minors commit a felony trespass—among dozens of other criminally insane acts that would fill the rest of this volume._

 _When we finally returned to town, some hours after dark, his tune changed drastically. Over dinner at the local diner, S became particularly belligerent over the fact that we simply left the creature in the cave. He was furious at the idea that we could just allow a monster to continue to stalk the mountains here. It was like his frustrations in Hurricane—and just as annoying. He was absolutely insistent that we return in the morning to slay the creature._

 _(Of course, I couldn't agree, necessarily, to return for the sake of killing a little-documented cryptid, but I wasn't going to fight over returning to the creature's cave. All the sketches I've done of it are from memory, but something hasn't been captured right. I don't think it looks properly…frightened. Strange, certainly, but it seemed genuinely afraid when I encountered it.)_

 _Before our discussion could become too heated, an older man, who had apparently been eavesdropping on our admittedly loud discussion, interrupted. He told us quite a bit about the wendigo (the notes are beside the drawings, opposite, if S allows me to keep them), but the most impressive thing he managed to do was end Stanley's childish insistence: when Stanley commented, again, that we ought to kill the creature, the man told him that it would be a fruitless endeavor. "The wendigo always returns. At least this time, it tries to leave us be."_

 _(I did find his emphasis on "us" curious…)_

* * *

The Stan o' War II bobbed in the harbor. Two lamps illuminated the small space: one above Stan's bunk, where he passively read through a well-worn book, and one at the desk, where Ford scribbled in his journal, alternately writing and drawing. Occasionally, Ford stole furtive glances at his brother, as if worried that Stan would peer over his shoulder at any point to protest what had been put on the page. When the complaint didn't happen (truthfully, Stan seemed completely unaware of his monitoring), Ford clicked his pen a few times and returned to his work.

The longer he wrote, the deeper his frown became; the deeper his frown became, the more frequent his glances became; the more frequent his glances became, the more his right eye hurt. Ford noticed none of his observational ticks until Stan snapped at him.

"What, Ford?"

"Hm?"

Stan huffed. "You've been writing about me since we got back."

"That's…" Ford coughed and glanced at his journal. "Not, uh, necessarily true."

"You're a terrible liar." Scowling, Stan lowered his book. "I get it, you're still mad about the journal. Sorry I'm ruining your research." He shook his head. "But I'm not wrong."

"Stanley—" Ford bit back the venomous response. Sighing, he crumpled in his chair. "Forget it. Just—just forget it. We're not having this argument again."

"No, of course not." Without acknowledging whether his brother noticed, he turned off his hearing aid and returned to his book.

Ford said nothing and continued sketching. He still couldn't get the wendigo's eyes quite right.

* * *

 _The Stan o' War II bobbed in the harbor. Early morning light shone into the cabin, progressively eliminating the need for the single desk lamp Ford had turned on hours ago. It had been a long night._

 _He'd been having more of those since their trip to Hurricane. Something seeped its way into his subconscious (something, as if he didn't know precisely who it was that still haunted him); sleep hadn't eluded him so conspicuously since his last visit to the Nightmare Realm. Ford's greatest wish was that he had something better to occupy the nighttime hours. There were only so many things he could do without waking his brother, only so many times he could read the same few books, only so much he could write._

" _Ugh, why did you keep that thing?"_

 _Ford groaned. He hadn't heard his brother stir. "For study," he answered into his journal._

 _Stan met his sigh with an equally disdainful huff. "Seriously, Poindexter?"_

" _It's from a possessed animatronic," Ford explained, curt. His brother had never been a particularly pleasant person in the mornings; he was torture when he woke up in a foul mood like this. "I'm curious if it shows any evidence of that. Maybe it's still possessed; who knows?"_

" _Yeah, that's impressive, a possessed ear from some ratty costume that's been rotting for twenty years." He could hear Stan rolling his eyes behind him. "Fascinating entry for your diary, there."_

 _Turning over the once white bit of plastic in his hand, Ford forced himself not to rise to his brother's bait. He hated when Stan instigated him first thing in the morning. "It's not a diary, Stanley—why don't you find something to occupy yourself instead of hovering over me?"_

 _Stan scoffed and shuffled away. His irritable footsteps stopped only a short distance away—their boat didn't provide enough space for effective storm-offs._

" _It's like you want us to get caught," his brother lectured from the kitchenette. "Between the whole fucking confession you wrote in the journal and the damn trophy you took from the scene…" The angry rummaging in the cabinets ceased for a moment, shortly followed by the sputtering of their overworked coffee maker. "I don't know what space jail was like, but if it's anything like regular jail, I can't see why you're so excited to go back."_

 _Ford scowled and threw his journal shut. Patience, especially when it came to his brother's antagonizing, had never been one of his gifts. "It wasn't a confession, Stanley, it was merely documentation of the supernatural phenomena we encountered." Frustrated, he tossed his pen at the table, for good measure. "And it's not a trophy, it's a sample for my research."_

" _Yeah? Well, in the hands of a prosecutor, that 'documentation' becomes evidence." Two ceramic mugs clanged against the counter and the cabinet slammed shut. "And in case you don't remember, I'm a dead man and you have a storied criminal record."_

" _Frankly, I'm shocked that_ you _remember that."_

 _A hot mug dropped onto the table beside him. Stan said nothing and left the cabin._

 _Ford sighed and picked up the mug, ignoring the liquid that had sloshed over the brim and onto the table. He sipped at the coffee, noting the stains on his papers. It was bitter._


	2. Rumor Has It

Mabel held up her newest sweater for the webcam, ecstatic. "I made it special for National Pizza Day! I didn't even know it was a real holiday until last night, but I wanted to be prepared, just in case." She pulled up her pig, who wore another, smaller, matching sweater, emblazoned with a single slice of pizza. "Look! I even made one for Waddles!"

"That's splendid, Mabel." Ford smiled. "Though I didn't realize how many frivolous holidays we have in this dimension."

Mabel harrumphed. "Grunkle Ford. National Pizza Day is _not_ a frivolous holiday. It's very important—we should always celebrate the things we love! How else would they know we love them?"

"I don't know that pizza has the cognitive ability to comprehend such appreciation…" Brow furrowed, Ford glanced at his brother. "There aren't any, uh, living pizzas in this dimension, are there?"

Stan stared at him, nonplussed. "I don't know how to answer that."

"You could just say no."

"There's a dimension of pizza people?!" She moved closer to the camera such that only her face was visible. "You have to tell me all about it—"

"Mabel, seriously, it's just a joke." Dipper pulled his sister away from the webcam, replacing her with his journal. The blurred page was illegible on the monitor. "This is what I was telling you about! Ashton was telling me about these creatures—he moved here a few months ago from Lake Township, in Michigan—and there's this old mansion there, and it's, like, super haunted or something—I guess it used to be a prison, like, forty years ago? Or there was a prison near it, or an insane asylum, or something? I didn't quite follow, but he said there are some kind of monsters living out there, or ghosts, maybe? I didn't really get the details, but I did write some of it down. I'll have to ask him tomorrow about it." He squealed and pulled his journal from in front of the monitor. "It's my first real journal entry!"

"That's wonderful, Dipper!" Ford nodded approvingly. "I'd love to read it when you've finished."

Dipper beamed, nearly dropping the journal in his excitement. "O-of course, Great Uncle Ford! I'll—I'll investigate all kinds of urban legends and fairy tales—I'll fill out the entire journal by the time you come back to Piedmont!"

Ford laughed. "I look forward to it."

Mabel pulled the flaps of Dipper's hat down, covering his eyes. "Enough about your nerd book, Dip-Dop. Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, have you found anything neat for me to add to my scrapbook?" She flipped through the pages of a sparkling, stickered-covered book. "The last thing I have is the weird lights in the sky, and that was, like, a week ago!"

"We haven't really done much lately, Pumpkin." Stan sat back in his chair, folding his arms. "We did hear a story about a wendigo in town the other day, though."

Ford's brow quirked upward. He said nothing.

Dipper clicked his pen a few times. "Wow, a wendigo? Did you find one? Where did it live? Are they really nocturnal? I heard they were, like, ten feet tall and have three rows of teeth—"

"Dipper!" Mabel covered her brother's mouth. "Grunkle Stan can't tell us the story with you asking all those questions."

"Yes, Stanley, I'm sure the kids would love for you to regale them with the story we heard," Ford murmured, amused. "The, uh, 'urban legend' we heard in town?"

Stan fought the urge to shoot his brother a sour look; instead, he sat forward, ready to share the tale. "It all started about ten years ago. There were two brothers, Fred and Alf—high school kids, y'know, teenagers, a little older than the two of you—and they went for a hike in the woods on a mountain, a little way out of town. I guess it's a popular hiking spot or something. Anyway, it was over the holidays, so there was a lot of snow and it was cold as all get-out." Snickering, Stan nudged Ford. "Way colder than Oregon, huh?"

"Even this late in the season, unfortunately." Ford sighed. "It seems that my coat isn't as sufficiently insulated as I anticipated."

"Your great uncle thinks he's hot stuff because he survived in a few icy worlds. Mr. Big Shot here doesn't think he needs to wear _all_ of your sweaters to go out in the snow." Stan's aside earned him a playful punch.

Mabel pouted. "Grunkle Ford, you really should bundle up before you go out into the snow to hunt monsters. Did you at least wear the gloves I knitted for you?"

"Of course." Ford held up his hands, wiggling all twelve of his fingers to show off the brightly-colored gloves. "They're very warm."

Delighted, Mabel screeched. Dipper clamped a hand over her mouth to end the noise; after a moment, he jerked his hand back and wiped it on his shirt.

"Ew, Mabel, did you lick me?"

Her tongue still out, Mabel met her brother's aghast stare. "Yes."

"Gross!"

"Alright, alright, enough of your nonsense." Stan waved off the tangent. "So, Fred and Alf, they wound up getting lost, somewhere way off the trail, and they found shelter in a cave—which, as it turns out, was probably the worst decision, because there was an avalanche. Blocked the whole entrance off and trapped the two of them inside."

"I don't think that's true," Ford protested. He folded his arms and frowned. "There was no indication that the cave had been closed in—"

"Like you could tell with all that snow there."

"Wait, did you two actually go _see_ the cave where this happened?" Dipper again clicked his pen a few times and flipped through his journal. He scribbled down a few notes before looking up. "So, this story is real?"

"Well, it's an urban legend, Dipper, we can't be sure that it's wholly true." Ford adjusted his glasses as he considered the rest of his point. "However, most urban legends do come from some sort of truth; it's simply a matter of finding what actual events inspire these stories. So, to find that truth, we went to the source of the rumors to investigate."

"What did you find? Was the wendigo living there—?"

"Hey, I'm trying to tell a story over here." Stan flailed to end Ford and Dipper's interruption.

"Yeah!" Mabel nodded, hugging Waddles to her chest; the pig oinked in agreement. "Save your nerd questions for later, bro-bro—Waddles and I want to hear the rest of the story!"

"Anyway," Stan continued, drowning out Dipper's attempt to argue. "The brothers were trapped. Days went by, and, even though a rescue team had been sent to find them, nobody could find their cave. No food, no water…Things, uh, weren't looking great." Rubbing at the back of his neck, Stan constructed the next portion of the story cautiously. "Now, some of the stories say that they argued about it, other stories say that Fred made the decision on his own, but, in the end, Alf was going to be the brother that lived.

"Y'know, they _say_ that once someone becomes a wendigo, they forget who they were." Stan shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "And, I mean, I can see where you'd think that, what with all the eating people and stuff. But I dunno, you ever see a wendigo eat a person?"

Ford frowned. "Yes, Stanley."

"You did not. That guy in the diner said that it doesn't bother anybody."

"But what about the pit—?"

"That you fell into chasing shadows?" Stan laughed, smacking his brother in the back. Cheerily turning to the webcam, he carried on. "He got trapped in a hole, like, seven feet deep, running after _nothing_."

Waddles oinked.

"See? That pig knows what I'm talking about!"


	3. Something in the Water

"No, really, Sixer, why does every small town have weird shit in it?" Stan gestured to the desolate tundra around them. "Can't we find a monster in a bar or at a beach or something? Or at least one somewhere _warm_?"

"If you want to continue to be petty about it, we are near a beach." Ford scoffed, momentarily glancing up from his anomaly tracker. "And, as I recall, you're the one who didn't want to go to Mexico."

"I've had enough of South America for one lifetime, thanks." Stan folded his arms.

"Mexico is in Central America."

"Everything looks the same from inside a prison."

Ford groaned. This argument had become tiresome over the last three weeks. "My point remains. There's an entirely new and completely uncatalogued creature running around the desert, and you won't let me investigate it." Pausing, he matched his brother's petulant stance. "So, we came here instead."

Stan threw a hand aside, frustrated. "It's just a Chupacabra, it's not like it's anything interesting. I've come up with better things for the Shack than some goat blood-eating vampire rip-off."

"It's a _new_ creature—"

"It's not new—"

"They were sighted for the first time in 1995—that's new!"

Stan snorted. "Yeah, okay, Poindexter." He gestured again to their surroundings. "So where is…whatever it is we're looking for?"

"Nearby, if the tracker is to be believed." Ford returned to the dubious beeping thing on his wrist. After taking a moment to interpret its output in the waning sunlight, he motioned the same way they had been walking for nearly half an hour. "This way."

Harrumphing, Stan stuffed his hands back into his pockets and followed his brother through the scrub brush. Their boots crunched against the permafrost, an arrhythmic staccato against the monotonous beeping from Ford's device. Wind huffed every so often; as it cut through the numerous layers of clothing and numbed any exposed skin, it brought the faint, salty scent of the ocean.

Ford had once told him that smell was the sense most deeply connected with memory, something about primal instincts and less evolved parts of the brain—more science mumbo-jumbo that meant nothing to him. He'd been thrilled to add that most of their childhood memories (and, by proxy, most of Stan's happier memories) must be attached to the sea; whatever they couldn't dredge up in Gravity Falls, Ford was sure they could revive aboard the Stan o' War II. Since leaving wendigo country, he'd been particularly insistent on the matter, for weeks asking after newly returned memories whenever he wrote in his journal, which was often.

What Ford didn't seem to realize was that saltwater smelled the same _everywhere_ , whether it was in the Arctic, the Great Egg Inlet, or the Gulf of Honduras. "The sea" meant more than Glass Shard Beach. A few memories struggled to surface, as they had since the end of summer, none forming more than a cursory impression: a small, dark space and the rock of the ocean; heavy lifting and splashes; _zapatos cementos_ ; hunger, desperation, and the inability to make his dumb, cold fingers just _work_ for once; sand between his toes and a racing heart. He wondered if he could get his hands on toffee peanuts somewhere out here.

Lost in his thoughts, Stan walked directly into his brother.

"Moses, Stanley, could you pay even the slightest bit of attention?" Ford's voice lacked conviction in its frustration. Too much excitement bubbled within him, a response to the tracker's rapid beeping. "I need you to keep a look out."

"For what?"

"The Qalupalik."

Stan stared at his brother. "That's what it's called? And you gleaned that from the conversation earlier, huh?"

"Well, my Ter isn't _terribly_ strong—" Ford struggled not to grin at Stan's groan "—but, from what I gathered, the creature abducting the village children is called a Qalupalik, and it lives in or near the water. Though, no one really clarified that it was on the coastline…but, then, it couldn't really be terrorizing the village if it were a deep-sea creature…"

"When and why did you bother to learn—what did you call it?" Stan went to scratch at the back of his neck, but the layers of scarf and jacket and gloves made the habitual motion pointless.

"Ter, Stanley. It's a Samic language, a branch of Uralic…" Seeing his brother's eyes glaze immediately in boredom, Ford shook his head. "They spoke a similar language in the Dimension of Obscure Languages. I spent a few months there—and this was before I got my hands on a universal translator, mind you—so I managed to pick up enough to get by." He chuckled. "I'll admit, even I'm a bit surprised that I remember as much as I do."

Stan shrugged in an enormous, dramatic motion. "Yeah, that seems reasonable."

Ford nodded, missing his brother's tone entirely. "I can explain further, later, when we're not hunting a monster. The Qalupalik should be nearby, likely in the water." Eager, he returned to the tracker on his wrist, the exposed skin apparently immune to the freezing temperature. "This way."

Stan followed a few paces behind his brother. His eyes focused on the nearby craggy shoreline. The sea lapped calmly, glistering in the rapidly diminishing light. There were no animals around, he noted, no gulls flying overhead, no crabs scuttling among the rocks, no seals or walruses or whatever aquatic animals that might live in this chilly wasteland lazing on the beach. For a moment, he thought it odd, to be surrounded by exclusively inorganic sounds—the tracker's beeping, their boots crunching against the ground, the wind rustling the brush, the waves susurrating against the shore; he then remembered that they were allegedly near some sort of carnivorous beast, and he no longer found their absence so odd.

Once, when he was sixteen, he stayed out until some asinine hour of the morning. He had a match that night, and he had utterly destroyed his opponent, breaking his nose and knocking him out in the first round. Of course, he hadn't escaped unscathed, but it was only a few bruises. Easily the cleanest victory of his short (legal) boxing career. No one had seen it—Ford was working on his science fair experiment, Ma had bridge with the other neighborhood women, and Pops had stopped coming to his matches long before. While not something he did often, he had gone out with some of the other kids; by the time they decided to turn in, he knew it was too late to sneak into the house. Pops would've flayed him if he made even the slightest noise. Instead, he chose to spend the rest of the chilly winter night in the Stan o' War.

It had been eerie, at first. Just the shush of the ocean, the creaking of the warped wood, and the whistle of the wind through the boardwalk. No living creature made a sound, himself included. It was surreal. Five minutes away, he knew, even in the middle of the night, the streets would be teeming with life, but he could hear none of it.

Like most of the memories he'd regained, that night smelled strongly of saltwater.

Something amongst the waves dragged him from the memory. A dark shadow undulated with the water. He thought it might be green, but he wasn't sure.

"Ford?"

"Yes, Stanley?"

"You see that?" He gestured toward the shallows, where the dark thing waited.

Ford's brow furrowed. "See what?"

"That…thing." By the time Stan managed to think of what to call it, the shadow had disappeared. "Well, it was there."

Curious, Ford followed his brother's motion. He reached the edge of the water and peered in, leaning as far as his balance would allow. When he found nothing, he turned back to Stan. "What did you see?"

"It was a…" Stan vaguely moved his hands, hoping to conjure a proper description; he failed to invent the words for whatever it was that he didn't quite see. "A thing."

Ford considered the explanation. With a quick glance to the tracker on his wrist, he frowned. "If it was something, it's far gone now. Perhaps it was a trick of the light—or what little we have left. You brought your flashlight, didn't you, Stanley?"

"Yeah…" He tarried, eyes lingering on the spot, and eventually followed his brother. "Are you sure we should be hunting man-eating monsters in the dark?"

"When else would we hunt them?" Ford's genuinely perplexed question prevented any further commentary. "Aside, from what I gathered, it's likely only one man-eating monster. Likely. I was never wholly sure of myself on the matter of numbers…" He devolved into a ramble, debating with himself the potentially different numbers, their possible translations, and whether the denizens of the Dimension of Obscure Languages counted in base ten. He abandoned the empty spot on the beach and continued his trek, still muttering to himself.

Wordless, Stan fell in line. He wondered about the creature in the water. What sort of monster was it? Ford had never properly described it (and Stan wasn't about to set him onto another rant), just that it was a beast preying on the local children. It couldn't be too big, he reckoned. Certainly not too big to punch.

The wind picked up when the sun set; the scrub brush rustled louder, the wind howled in its own right, and Ford loudened such that his raving could be heard over all things. The twins retrieved their flashlights, cutting thin paths through the darkness. Stan allowed his attention to drift, collecting the pieces of memories that the night brought on. More impressions—a night camping outside an overturned RV, desperately searching the woods for something, breaking into a warehouse somewhere in Maine. The night in Maine, however, didn't have music.

"You hear that, Sixer?"

Ford's voice cut out for a moment. Bewildered, he turned to his brother. "What are you talking about? How could you possibly hear anything—?"

"Moses, shut up, Ford." Stan grabbed Ford's shoulder and covered his mouth. "Just listen for a sec, would ya?"

He obliged. In his silence, the two could hear singing from not so great a distance. Feminine, but deep, throaty, with wide, round notes, strung together in long legato phrases. Above all else, it soothed, like a lullaby. Ford's breath hitched.

"The piper beckons!" He snatched Stan's arm, dragging him along as he ran. Stan stumbled initially, but quickly regained his footing and kept pace. The flashlight beams bobbed with their steps. "Come, Stanley! It's near!"

The voice led them to a rocky outcropping, teetering over a calm cove. There sat a creature—undoubtedly, _the_ creature they sought—humanoid, gaunt, with ghastly green flesh and impossibly long, sharp claws. Its webbed fingers clutched a woven bag or basket, something large enough to carry a child; one's head barely poked over the brim, a messy ruffle of brown.

Stan moved before he realized what he was doing. As he reached the creature, it peered up at him with glassy black eyes, clutching the woven thing close to its chest. It made to flee, pausing only when the bag didn't move with it: Stan had snared the basket, careful of the mop of hair peeking out. Instead of running, however, the creature tugged, pulling at the handle, enormous claws digging deep into the weave—

The bag ripped. Immediately recovering from its stumble, the creature dove toward Stan, avidly ignoring him and reaching doggedly for the torn piece. The weave fluttered between its webbed fingers—

A green shot narrowly missed both Stan and the Qalupalik. Startled, both turned to Ford. The creature watched him level the laser pistol, carefully taking aim; when the weapon fully recharged, the Qalupalik skittered out of the light, to the edge of the outcropping, and leapt. Ford darted after it, skidding to a stop at the cliff.

Stan let his brother handle the creature. His attention drifted to the woven thing now in his possession. Retrieving the flashlight he'd dropped in the struggle, he looked inside what he passively decided was really more of a backpack.

Another shot fired. The water sizzled.

"Fucking refraction." Ford watched the Qalupalik while his weapon recharged. Instead of swimming away like a typical creature fleeing harm, it floated a fathom below the surface of the water, perfectly still but for its mass of dark hair shifting in the tide. Ford was unsure why it didn't move out of his light, but it was much easier to aim at a motionless object than one moving. A quick calculation and a slight adjustment to account for the water's refraction, and—

"Stanford."

He started at the sudden presence of his brother's hand on his shoulder. Ford managed to keep his eyes and flashlight trained on the Qalupalik, though he turned his head. "Did it hurt you? How is the child?"

"Uh…"

"What, Stanley? What's wrong?"

"Look."

Against his better judgement, Ford looked away from the creature. Beside him, Stan held out a doll, one as large as a toddler, with a mop of ragged brown hair. The paint had been worn away, eroded from the ravages of the Arctic tide; its face had become a ghastly, plastic reflection of a real child's.

"An old doll?" Ford frowned, glancing at the woven amautiit at his brother's feet. The ripped strap jutted out at an odd angle.

Stan lowered the doll into the backpack. "Guess so."

"But…"

"I don't know what to tell you, Sixer." Grabbing the amautiit, Stan stepped to the edge of the outcropping; below, the Qalupalik still floated, motionless, black eyes fixated on the bag. He dropped the backpack over the ledge. Before it hit the water, the creature snatched it and swam into the darkness.

Slowly, Ford holstered his gun, watching the place where the Qalupalik had been. His hands proceeded to occupy themselves by toying with his extra fingers. "An old doll…?"


	4. Bedtime Story

"What a strangely undocumented creature."

Stan huffed a few notes on the harmonica to express his indifference.

"I suppose there's just not much academic literature on the matter…" Sighing, Ford flipped through the compendium on the desk. "I've found a few mentions here and there, most of which aren't terribly consistent, but there's this version of the Qalupalik's story that casts it in the same sort of light as a lamia a White Lady or a churayl or la llorona or estries—"

Again, Stan huffed a few notes on the harmonica, louder to emphasize his indifference.

Ford snorted. "You weren't so disinterested this morning when we first set out to find the Qalupalik."

"Yeah, well, it was a child-abducting and probably -eating monster this morning." Stan scowled.

"It's probably a _good_ thing that the story turned out to be false," Ford reminded him. "Interesting that they were so convinced otherwise—"

The cell phone rang, its electric jingle obnoxiously drowning out the rest of Ford's sentence. As he picked up the phone, Stan propped his feet up on the desk. "Hey, Pumpkin."

From across the cabin, Ford could hear Mabel's delighted squeals. Her high-pitched excitement prattled in a continuous stream of words that perhaps made some coherency. Dipper's eventual, exhausted shout quieted her for a moment.

"So, what's the matter, kids?"

Ford barely heard Dipper's voice murmuring in the speaker.

Stan hummed in response. "Well, I don't know if I have anything…Here. Ford might have something for you." He extended the cell phone to his brother. "They're looking for a bedtime story."

"A bedtime story?" Ford blinked, mindlessly taking the phone. "I anticipated something more dramatic, at this late hour."

" _I can't sleep, and Dipper can't either, but he won't admit to it."_ Mabel's earlier screams had been contained into an excited hush. _"Do you have a story for us?"_

"I'm sure I do." Rising from his chair, Ford paced across the cabin. He stepped over the messes on the linoleum floor—piles of books, various pieces of clothing, Stan's mysteriously muddy boots, Ford's flamethrower/hot plate, a possibly human skull—and mentally cursed his and his brother's slovenly ways. "What would you children like to hear about?"

Both twins' voices echoed in the speaker.

" _A fairy tale!"_

" _A monster story!"_

Ford smirked. "I think I have something that might satisfy both of you. But first: are both of you tucked into bed?"

" _Yes, Grunkle Ford."_

"Splendid. Now, the story begins—"

Mabel made a garbled noise on the other end of the phone. _"Once upon a time, Grunkle Ford!"_

"Of course, of course, my mistake. Let me start again. Once upon a time, somewhere far, far in the north, there was a small village. A woman lived there with her children. Every day, she would take them down by the shore to collect abalone. But the shoreline was precarious, its tide pools only safely accessible in certain places.

"One day, as they collected the abalone, the children lost track of the time, and when the tide came in, they were drowned. The woman mourned them deeply, sitting by the sea each day, until, eventually, she walked into the water.

"It is said that she still haunts the shoreline, that she hunts children who wander there alone. She steals them away in her amautiit and disappears into the water to feed on them." Ford paused in front of his desk, glancing over the open book thereon. A frown wormed onto his face. "Seems strange, though, for a mourning mother to feed on children; typically, these sorts of myths would have the woman become bitter or vengeful—"

A loud snore interrupted his rambling. Ford waited for a moment before speaking again.

"Mabel? Dipper?"

There was no answer, only the distant sounds of slow breathing and the occasional snore.

"Good night, kids." Ford ended the call and placed the phone on the desk. "I wonder how long ago they fell asleep." He glanced at the other desk, where Stan seemed to have fallen asleep with his feet still propped up and his hands folded behind his head. "Huh. I'll have to keep this in mind next time I want Stanley to go to bed." Treading quietly, Ford moved to the kitchenette and rummaged through the cabinets.

"So why do they think that thing is taking their kids?"

Ford turned around, holding yet another empty coffee tin. "What?"

"The Qa-whatever." Stan opened one eye. "Why do they think it's stealing their kids?"

"Ah." Ford tossed the tin into the trash before returning to his search. "There's no definitive answer on the matter, but, based on the different descriptions I've read about the creature, it may just be a case of typical hyperbole common to oral traditions." He found an unopened bag of coffee grounds. "Between its boogeyman status, the tradition of using monsters to explain disappearances and mysterious deaths, and perhaps the creature's habit of loitering around human populations…It's not unreasonable for them to believe that the Qalupalik hunts their young."

Stan yawned. "Guess it doesn't hurt that it carries around that doll."

"Yes, I suppose that would bolster the rumors." Ford returned his attention to his brother, holding up the bag from the cupboard. "Coffee?"

"No, I think I'm gonna head to bed." After stretching, Stan pushed himself out of his chair. "And you should, too. I'm sick of listening to you talk to yourself all night."

Ford rolled his eyes. "And I'm sick of your snoring." He put the coffee back in the cabinet with a sigh. "I'll go to bed soon; I wanted to write some notes in my journal while the information is still fresh."

"Yeah, okay." Stan shot him a pointed look. "If you're up all night again, I'm going to hide the coffee."


	5. Redacted

Ford leaned over the journal, head in his hand, glancing over what little had been spared an inky fate. Half of the entry concerning the wendigo had been blacked out, leaving a few unsatisfactory sketches of the creature and a small anecdote about the tiff at the diner; a doodle of a man filled out the corner of the page with a notation beside it ( _Did we ever get this man's name?_ ).

Flipping through the next few pages, there was little censored, mostly rough drawings from the trip westward through the Arctic Ocean. The passing ghost ship, the siren song that Stan swore he couldn't hear, mysterious lights in the night sky (likely aliens, but potentially covert military testing), the kraken sighting—all quick moments spliced between long stretches of tending to the boat and keeping themselves entertained (and warm) in the cabin.

He reached the most recent adventure, the one he transcribed the day prior. Nearly half a dozen doodles of the Qalupalik and its inhuman cargo covered a two-page spread, notations and questions filling out most of the negative space. The description of the events prefaced the drawings with a short explanation: _While I only had a moment to watch the wendigo, I had a much longer moment to observe the Qalupalik as it waited in the water to determine whether it should return for its amautiit. I think a creature like it tried to kill me in the Technicolor Post-Apocalypse Dimension (it actually had some short, childish noise of a name that I can't recall—I do remember feeling too silly to ever say it)._

Turning the page brought him to the most recent writing, a block of rambling text. The first line caught him.

 _How easily we fall into old mental habits._

His eyes scanned the rest of the page. Slowly, they lifted, turning to the kitchenette.

"Stanley?"

Stan glanced up from the fresh coffee grounds he was putting into the much-abused percolator. "Geez, Sixer, I just opened the thing—water's not even hot yet. You really need the caffeine, huh?"

"No—well, yes, I would gladly accept some—but no, I was…merely curious…" Ford sat upright and clicked his pen a few times. "Dipper…he really read through my whole journal? Everything?"

"Yeah." Stan chuckled. "Kid was obsessed with it. Probably memorized most of it." He finished setting up the coffee maker and turned it on. "He probably would've memorized the first two, too, come to think of it, if he'd had them."

"Memorized…"

"It's the same with this one, too." Stowing the coffee grounds in the cupboard, he shook his head. "Mabel says he writes down his observations about _your_ journal in _his_ journal."

"Oh." Ford clicked his pen a few more times. He mindlessly rubbed at his right eye and returned to the journal. Looking over the words intensely, as if trying to memorize them, he fell into silence, motionless for a long beat.

With a final click, Ford brought the nib of the pen to the page. Line after line disappeared beneath the black ink, words becoming scribbles and incomprehensible dark splotches. When he completed his redaction, only the first line remained.

"Uh, Stanford?"

"Yes?"

"Not that I'm complaining or anything…" Stan eased his weight from one foot to the other, mulling over his words. "It's just that, well, I don't think I've ever seen you _willingly_ write anything out of your journal."

"Hm." Ford leaned back in his chair, eyes trained on his beautiful disaster, and considered the unspoken question. He tossed the pen onto the table. Heaving a sigh, he turned his head to his brother. "Do you remember when the kids followed Bill into your mind and rifled through your memories, looking for something?"

Stan shrugged. "Sure."

"But do you _remember_?"

"Well…" Folding his arms, Stan leaned against the counter. His gaze dropped, searching the middle distance for the answer. "I don't know that I ever really knew about it in the first place; everything that I remembered about it was more like a dream, y'know? Sort of forgot most of it before the whole 'end of the world' thing."

Ford frowned. "I see."

"But." Stan rubbed the back of his neck and avoided his brother's eyes. "I'm sure I've got memories rattling around in there that I wouldn't want them—or, y'know, I guess, anybody—to see." He huffed a laugh. "Including me."

Smiling slightly, Ford nodded. "When I wrote the journals—really, until we defeated Bill—I considered my life more like an epic, made of iconic moments and tragic flaws."

"You always were a drama queen."

"And as such, I thought it ought to be committed in its entirety to history. I thought I had succumb to hubris, like any great hero."

Stan snorted. "You? Ego? Nah, wouldn't dream of it."

"Hubris, Stanley, it's different than simple arrogance—"

"Uh-huh."

Ford drew a deep breath, held it for a few counts, and slowly exhaled, pushing all the air from his lungs before returning to his monologue. "My point is, Journal 3 held the darkest parts of who I was. Not only the drama and spectacle of the portal, Bill, and my own self-sabotage, but my very descent into madness. Pages and pages of paranoid ravings, insistent terror, loss of time and self…"

Stan remained silent. His brother's animalistic fear ( _Have you come to steal my eyes?_ ) still rattled in the recesses of his memories, dredged from the depths shortly after summer ended.

"And, for thirty more years, I harbored those thoughts and opinions." Again righting himself, Ford folded his hands over the journal. "But when you saved us—"

"I didn't _do_ anything, Stanford—"

"—I changed," Ford continued, speaking over his brother, "the same way I did when Dad kicked you out. I thought the darkness was gone." He toyed with his extra digits, passively watching his hands as if they were a curiosity in a museum. "But I found myself again in that headspace, after we fought. Those thoughts found their way back into the journal, and…" He sighed. "I hadn't realized how easy it was to return to that place."

They fell into silence. Neither brother met the other's eyes, each considering Ford's words as the cabin filled with the warm smell of coffee. When the percolator finished concocting its brew, Stan pushed himself off the counter with a dismissive noise.

"So you can be a jerk sometimes, big deal." Stan opened the cabinet and withdrew two mugs. "Everyone is." He put the mugs down with slightly more force than necessary. "And, yeah, sure, you don't want people rummaging around in your brain and whatever. Maybe, I dunno, just don't write all that down in the journal."

"It feels _wrong_ , though, not to put everything in the journals." Ford slumped forward and rested his face on his journal. "Thoughts and impressions are just as important for this sort of research as scientific observation and notation. Censoring it or omitting information just seems so…inappropriate…" A strangled noise of frustration wrest from his throat. "Would the kids be disappointed in me for keeping such a terrible journal? Would they be _more_ disappointed in me for committing such horrible thoughts to paper? It was different when I was just 'the Author'…" Groaning, Ford closed his eyes. "Remember how Mabel couldn't stop screaming when she saw the Stan o' War II? 'You're finally gonna have your adventure,' she said…"

A hot mug dropped onto the table, inches from Ford's face. In his wallowing, he hadn't heard his brother stomp the four steps from the kitchenette.

"Enough melodrama, Sixer." Stan flopped into the open chair. "We both know there's no way you could ever disappoint those kids."

Ford grumbled.

"Didn't catch that."

"You were right, Stanley," Ford repeated as he sat up. His glasses sat skewed on his face; he did nothing to fix them. "I shouldn't have written all that in the journal. I shouldn't have snapped at you about censoring it—you were just looking out for me, like you always are. And in my supreme arrogance, I vituperated you for desecrating my research. After all the harm my journals caused, I still haven't learned…I still clearly don't trust your judgement…I don't know why I can't just listen…"

Stan met his brother's defeated stare with a completely neutral expression. "Well, Stanford, I'm not positive that those were all real words, but I think you're being too hard on yourself." He glanced down at the journal. "You spent 40 years not trusting me; no one is surprised that you're not gonna listen to everything I say. 'Sides, it's not like I've got the best judgement in the world, anyway."

"I suppose." Ford rubbed his eye. "It's just…one would be inclined to think that, after nearly destroying the world, one would learn humility."

Visibly suppressing a laugh, Stan knocked on his brother's head. "Yeah, well, not everyone is as thick as the Pines."

"Yes, well…" He sighed, finally reaching up to adjust his glasses. "If only there were a solution…"

"You're the smartest guy in the universe. You'll figure it out."

When Ford removed his hand, a smudge of black remained on the lens. He eyed it, baffled, for a few moments. "Stanley?"

Stan coughed once. "Yes?"

"Is there ink all over my face?"

"Sixer, I'm not gonna lie to ya." Stan proceeded to occupy himself with his coffee, saying nothing more.

Ford took a deep breath. "How long has it been on my face?"

"I dunno, about ten minutes or so. I was planning on mocking you for it, but I thought it might be better to wait for you to notice it yourself. I think I made the right call."

Groaning, Ford collapsed onto the journal again.


End file.
